Discover what’s on at the Taiwan Summer School

This year’s SOAS Taiwan Studies Summer School runs from 3-7 July 2017 and promises to be a packed programme of concerts, films, and lectures.

Themes

Music is very much to the fore during the week, but the range of musical traditions explored is incredibly diverse with lectures on Taiwan indigenous music; Hoklo (Taiyu) songs; the rap scene in Taiwan; and the music of Jay Chou and Mayday.

Taiwan rap.

Another focus of this year’s summer school is ‘indigenous people’. Lectures touch upon their cultures, their social status, and their political rights.

Additionally, there will be lectures on Taiwan media; on Taiwan politics and society; and a panel discussion looking at the state of the nation during the 30 years since the lifting of martial law.

Ado Kaliting Pacidal will be performing a concert of songs in her native Amis (Pangcah) language. This promises to be a fun and exciting concert in which Ado will be accompanied by a cello, guitar and piano, and where audience participation is encouraged!

Ado is a singer-songwriter, the host of a music programme on Taiwan Indigenous Television, and has also starred in the feature film Panay (Wawa no Cidal), which is one of the few Taiwanese movies that is filmed from an indigenous perspective.

Golden Melody Award winner Hsieh Ming-yu will be singing some of his famous Hoklo songs during a second concert. After working for many years in commercial music production, Hsieh Ming-yu returned to his Tainan roots to pursue the lifestyle of an ‘urban vagabond’ and he now composes songs inspired by his encounters in his home city.

Hsieh Ming-yu performs at the Taiwan Studies Summer School.

Documentaries

There are two documentary screenings and accompanying Q&A sessions with the films’ directors. The first documentary examines the place of indigenous peoples in Taiwan; the other pays tribute to Taiwan’s New Cinema in the 1980s.